Peter Heather's "The Fall of the Roman Empire" - best modern account of how it happened, hard to put down.

But I just finished Harry Turtledove's "How Few Remain" which was as good as I had heard. Except I can't recall who it was here that told me to read it - mensu1954 maybe ? biglenr ? Whoever it was thanks. I will get to the rest of the series as soon as I find the time, which unfortunately won't be right away.

Finished "Barbarians at the Gate", picked up "Give Me Tomorrow" for a flight cross-country. Good story about the Chosin Reservoir stand/retreat in Korea, but not particularly well-written. Just started re-reading "Abandon Ship!" about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in WWII (immortalized in Jaws).

Posted by contrarian23 on 11/15/2012 12:12:00 AM (view original):"Opinion"? I suppose. In the same way that saying "Einstein was right about physics", would also be an opinion.
"Totally subjective"? No. In fact the whole point of the book is that there is an overwhelming amount of objective evidence for the thesis.
"A significant majority of the economists you know would disagree with"? Exactly why Skidelsky should be mandatory reading for all Americans, so they don't get misled by what passes for contemporary economic thought.

I'll buy it on your recommendation, but as an economics major, I'd argue that the objective evidence overwhelmingly would suggest Keynes was wrong about most things. I'll wait to pass judgment though until I read the book.

While I'm in the forum, I started three books this week: One for work, one for exercising my mind, and one for fun. They are (in no particular order, well, the order I pulled them out of my briefcase): Anarchy and Legal Order: Law and Politics for a Stateless Society by Gary Chartier,
But Didn't We Have Fun: An Informal History of Baseball's Pioneer Era by Peter Morris, and What Women Want: The Science of Female Shopping by Paco Underhill.

I'll let y'all figure out which belongs in which category.

So far, I think one of the authors is off his rocker, another is a poor writer, and the third is very educational. You'd probably be surprised by which is which...